Dragon's Heart (26 page)

I should just leave him to stew.

The little dragon shook its wings out, then climbed onto her shoulder, leaving pinpoint holes in the bodice and sleeves of her dress. Akki was about to pull away from Golden's arm when another man stepped into the circle of men.

Dark.

For a moment his eyes caught hers, and she quickly looked down.
You're just an innocent little girl, Golden's niece,
she reminded herself. So she pitched her voice higher than usual. Throwing her arms around Golden, she said excitedly, "Oh, Uncle, you were so wonderful tonight." She worked hard at ignoring Dark so close by.

Golden noticed Dark at the same time and grinned broadly. "I don't see you with a glass of chikkar, friend," he said, "to toast to the first of our three debates." He turned a bit, Akki's arms still around him. "Someone bring Dark here a glass." He whispered into Akki's hair. "What's wrong?" He'd guessed.

The minute Dark turned to take the glass, Akki said urgently to Golden, "I have to talk to you. Now. There's danger."

The dragon sent shivers through her head, no longer gray but red-hot.

Golden laughed, then said in an expansive voice that broadcast around the circle, "Here? Surrounded by friends?" He was careful not to repeat the word
danger.
"How can you be shy here?"

She replied in the same high-pitched voice, "I just am."

Dark insinuated himself into their intimate circle. "You won this day, Golden, and deserve to celebrate with your friends. And your pretty niece. No doubt I still have a chance to win the next debate now that I know where you stand. The next one, or possibly two. Who knows? You may even decide to step down once you hear from me again."

Laughing, Golden held up his glass toward Dark. "You have the true Austarian spirit."

"Why shouldn't I," Dark said. "I, at least, was born here."

Still smiling, Golden said, "You think because I was born offworld, I have less of a claim to Austar?" His tone was light but Akki could hear the iron underneath. "But for an early delivery, I would have been a native. I was brought here by my mother and father as an infant. I have lived here all my life."

"I do not protest your birth, Master Golden," said Dark, "though mine was an accident, too."

The crowd loved this thrust, applauding wildly—which spilled many a glass of chikkar.

"But I was born by accident into a bonder's family. Look at you—how long have you held on to your status?"

Golden's smile never wavered. He used it to draw them all in, even Dark. "Do not mistake my lifestyle for my policies. I was born neither bonder nor master but a new sort of Austarian. I made my money the old-fashioned way, by working for it. One dragon at a time. And as much as I liked making it, I have enjoyed spending it, too."

"Hear! Hear!" the men around him called out.

"He's funding the restoration of The Rokk out of his own pocket," said one man.

"Well," Golden said, a hand up in a kind of protest, "not
all
of it. I have some friends I've tapped."

"And tapped out!" Mac said, his bulk moving several men over as he entered the circle.

Laughing, Dark raised his hands. "I give up for now. I don't wish to argue here but will wait till the next debate."

"You did well for a first debate in a first run," Mac told him sincerely. "Standing in front of the podium—brilliant."

"Do not mistake my style for my substance," Dark said in the exact tone that Golden had used. This brought another smattering of applause. "And now I am leaving. It's getting late. I am extremely sensitive to Dark-After. And staying on the far side of the city. Oh, by the way, I can escort your niece home. Argent is it—this month?"

Akki's reaction was so immediate, so visceral, so violent, the hatchling lifted from her shoulder and fluttered for a moment before landing again.

Dark looked over and his mouth curved. On anyone else it would have been a smile.

Golden bowed slightly to him. "Silver to my gold, she tells me, though even last week she was Aurea. Young girls are so changeable. I think I will never understand them."

"Ah, Aurea, which means gold, named after you, I see."

Smiling, Golden said, "You're a very well educated man for—"

"For an ex-bonder."

"There's a car," Golden said, then laughed. "But of course, I am no longer using a senate car."

The men cheered.

"No, I want to stay with you, here," Akki said. The dragon hissed from her shoulder.

"It's not a long walk," Golden told her. "And Senekka will be with you."

Senekka, who had been quiet the whole time, nodded. "I will."

"And Henkky?" he asked, looking around.

"She's shaking hands and being charming," Akki whispered. Briefly she considered telling him then and there, exposing to all of them who Dark was. But that would mean revealing who she was as well: Sarkkhan's daughter, the one who—all inadvertently—blew up Rokk Major. And if Golden wanted to ease into it, prepare the way, she would ruin things. Blow them up again. And ruin Golden's senate bid. Hand it over to men like Dark. And then where would the dragons be?

And what if I'm wrong about Dark?
she asked herself.
I could expose us all—and for nothing.
But she knew now that she wasn't wrong.

Just then, as if conjured up by her name, Dr. Henkky joined the circle, and Golden took his arm from around Akki and put it around Henkky's waist. "Done with the handshakes and charm, darling?" he asked.

She looked around the circle. "Only getting started. More chikkar, boys?"

They raised their glasses.

"See you in the morning, girls," Henkky said, and turning her back on them, she raised her glass to the men. "To that dragon of debaters. To Golden!"

"Golden! Golden! Golden!" they cheered.

The cheer muffled their movements as Dark, smiling broadly, led them out a side door into an alleyway. Though Akki tried to hold back, Senekka led her on.

"Come on," Senekka said, "they wanted us gone.
She
wanted us gone."

"We should have stayed," Akki whispered. "Dark is—"

Senekka misunderstood. "We have plenty of time till Dark-After. Even walking. Two hours at least."

"Come on, girls," Dark said, still smiling, and signaling them with his hand.

He was at the end of the alley. Suddenly he stopped, leaned forward, and checked the street both ways. When he turned back, he had the gun in his hand and was pointing it at them.

Senekka looked startled. Then she laughed. "I get it. It's a joke."

Akki gasped. "No joke."

Senekka stared at her. "He said it wasn't loaded. In the debate." She spoke louder so Dark could hear. "You said it wasn't loaded."

Akki was suddenly ice-cold and the hatchling on her shoulder shivered as well, tail curling and uncurling around her arm.

No longer smiling, Dark glared at them. "Sorry, girls," he said. "I lied."

SENEKKA TURNED to Akki. "He couldn't possibly shoot us. We've done nothing to him."

"Tell her, Number Four," Dark said.

"Number Four?" Senekka asked.

"I don't know what he's talking about. He thinks I'm someone I'm not." Akki was no longer cold. She was ice. And the dragon was sending her huge icicles bearing down on her like daggers, no longer gray but glaring white. The sendings all but drowned out Senekka's voice. And Dark's.

If she wanted to make out what the others were saying, she'd have to build up a wall in her mind, stone by stone, as she and Jakkin had learned to do in the caves of the trogs. Only that way could she shut out the hatchling and concentrate on what was happening around her. So she bent her mind to the wall.

Stone.

By.

Stone.

By.

Stone.

When at last she'd shut out the dragonling's insistent sendings, she realized that she'd completely missed whatever it was that Dark had said next.

"She can't be
that
horrible person," Senekka was saying. "She's Golden's niece. His goddaughter. From a dragon nursery. Not a rebel. Not a murderer. Not a..." Her hands were wrangling together. "You have to let us go. We won't say a thing about the gun. We'll—"

Dark cut her off. "Oh, she's that person, all right. With the stink of worm still on her despite her pretty blue dress and new haircut. Trying to look younger than she is. And sillier. But what's bad for me is that she's alive, which I hadn't counted on. I didn't think anyone who knew me before Rokk Major blew up was still alive. Or on Austar IV." Backing down the alley, the gun still held on them, he signaled them to follow.

"We can jump him," Senekka whispered. "He can't shoot us both at the same time."

"He can if we stick together," Akki whispered back, still keeping up the wall in her head. "And if he's a good shot."

"Is he?"

"How should I know?"

"I knew you couldn't be that person he says you are."

"Never mind
that
person," Akki said. "We have to concentrate on Dark. I'll rush ahead and bump into him, send the dragon at his eyes, while you run back through the door and get help."

"Will it work?"

Akki had no idea. "It
has
to."

"Come on, come on, you two," Dark called.

"No, I'll do the bump ... if he shoots me, what does it matter?"

Akki shook her head. "It matters. And since it's me he seems to be focusing on, I've got to be the one."

Before Senekka could argue further, Akki took off at a run toward Dark, screaming, "I'm alive and so is Jakkin, you piece of worm drool!" As she ran, she grabbed the hatchling off her shoulder, tearing the dress at the seam. Then she threw Aurea toward Dark. But she'd forgotten the carefully built wall, and the hatchling was puzzled when it couldn't reach her mind, spending precious seconds trying to break down the wall for instructions. Then the hatchling circled Dark's head, wings beating, making a piteous squeaking sound.

"Danger! Danger! Dive at him. Dive!" Akki shouted, at the same time hurling a blood-red sending through a small chink in the stone wall. Behind her, she could hear Senekka hammering on the door, which must have locked shut automatically when they went out.

"Dive!" Akki screamed again at the hatchling. "Danger!" She flooded a blood-red river through the enlarging chink.

The hatchling dove.

With his left hand, Dark tried to bat at the dragon, keeping it from getting to his eyes. The other gripped the pistol. He sighted along it, and squeezed the trigger twice in rapid succession.

Senekka screamed and the dragon—having gouged Dark's left temple badly—wheeled away.

Not knowing if they'd been hit, Akki continued her headlong rush toward Dark, hands like claws stretched toward his face. At the last minute, her right ankle twisted because of the heeled shoe and she fell headlong into his chest instead. He smashed the gun barrel down on the top of her head.

Blood rained into her eyes.
Scalp wounds are the worst.
She raised her hands to her face.
Or else it's a sending.
Then the pain began and she knew it was real.

The wall began to crumble entirely, and she fell onto Dark and into the dark.

***

AKKI WOKE to streams of cold running across her body. Black was all around her. At first she thought she was home in bed. Then she realized she was lying on some sort of mattress or pallet on a floor. The mattress was thin and lumpy. Turning over carefully, she spotted a ray of gray light through a chink.

In the wall?
She quickly realized the wall in her head was down, though there were no frantic sendings coming through. The chink was not in her mind at all, but in a wooden shutter over some kind of window.

Window. Light. Cold.
She tried to make sense of it.

Her head was sore. Not like a sore head after a night of drinking chikkar; that soreness usually began in the back of the throat and radiated into the temples. This soreness hurt from the outside in. She tried to put a hand to her head, and that's when she found that her hands were tied behind her.

She thought again:
Window. Light. Cold. Dark-After.

As quickly, she said aloud, "Dark," though she wasn't sure what she meant by that.

But now she began to remember some of what had happened to her. Some—not all. She remembered the debate and the four men speaking. First the scared man and then the boring man and then the man who stood in front of the podium.
That man!
She remembered recognizing him. His name was Dark. She remembered the chikkar party and leaving early with Senekka and ... and after that—after that, everything was blank.

Had someone kidnapped her? Was Senekka taken, too? And what about the hatchling?

She called out for Senekka, but there was no answer. She called again, louder, her voice croaking. Still nothing. Then she tried a sending, in case the hatchling was around. She'd barely formed a gray bit of an arrow, when she had to stop. Her head simply hurt too much. She wondered if she'd been concussed.

"Fewmets!" she said aloud.
Jakkin, where are you? I need you.
But thinking about him hurt, too. In a different way.

She closed her eyes, then as quickly opened them again. If she had a concussion, the last thing she should do was to fall asleep again. But she was so tired. So
very
tired. Her head hurt. Her hands were numb. Her memory was gone. She was alone. And it was Dark-After.

She slept.

***

WHEN SHE WOKE this time, light was streaming through the chink in the shutter. Her head still hurt, her bound hands were numb, and that numbness seemed to have moved up to her elbows. She had to pee, and she wondered why she was here, why she was alive.

She tried again to remember what had happened. She recalled the debate and after ... a party. Yes, with chikkar. Had she drunk any? Was that what happened?

But chikkar couldn't explain her present situation. She looked down at her dress, a girl's blue party dress. For the first time, she saw the blood. All that blood. Her head hurting. Possible concussion.
Scalp wound,
she thought.
Someone has hit me on the head.